Sermon - 23rd November 2008

Scripture - Matthew 25: 31-46

Dan Joseph

Prime Minister of Prime Ministers!  No, it doesn’t have the same ring to it as ‘King of Kings’ does it? What about ‘President of Presidents’? No, doesn’t sound right either does it?
In the west, it’s been a very long time since we associated royal positions with being in a position of power or authority; we have a Royal Family in this country but we all know that they don’t really decide what happens to us or how our money is spent. So as this Sunday marks the Sunday of ‘Christ The King’ it may seem a little odd to associate Jesus the King with decision making.

We prefer to think of Jesus as shepherd, it’s a lovely pastoral image, it’s very comforting; Jesus guides us and watches over us, He loves and accepts poor sinners like us, He seeks the lost.  He forgives us. He is a man of compassion, mercy, and everlasting love.

But our reading today tells us a number of things about Jesus that when it comes down to it, are at the very core of what we believe. Jesus is our king. Jesus will make the biggest decision that will affect every one of us. Jesus is still a shepherd.  We are told that Jesus will make a final judgement call on our lives, and this is anything but comforting.

Most of us find it hard to really deal with the fact that Jesus is a shepherd who holds a sword - that he is a shepherd who judges his flock, that he is a king who judges his people and in judging them sends some of them to a place without forgiveness.  Jesus is a King who divides his flock into those which are sheep and those which are goats.

On the face of it – if it were literally true, if we were sheep and goats that would be a very easy thing to do – which ones have wool and which ones have horns. It wouldn’t be a difficult thing to separate between the two. And yet we know in life that our decision rarely seem so black and white, the choices we make often seem to be choosing between shades of grey and sometimes even choosing the lesser of two evils.

But this reading tells us that based on the choices we make we will ultimately be assigned to one of two groups – one group will live forever the other will not.  I remember as a child this caused me some concern!  How many good deeds do I need to do to be good enough for God?  I'm usually kind to people, but I was in a rotten mood last Wednesday. Does that make me a goat?  Is it sufficient for me just to do enough good deeds to outweigh my bad deeds?

We can put these thoughts to the back of our mind, we can choose not to think about it, because it makes it easier to cope with, but every now and again it surfaces – every time we lose someone we love, we are reminded that the time available to us is limited – and that we have to use that time to demonstrate the type of people we really are.

There is a link between our faith and actions, what we claim to believe and what we actually do. You would think, from this reading, that you would separate folk into those who go to church and those who do not – those who say they are a Christian and those who say they have no faith. But this reading is talking about exposing  hypocrisy – those who say , ‘Yes I believe in Jesus, yes he died for my sins,’ but I will not allow it to make any difference to the way I behave at work, or treat the loved ones, or use my money. And yet that is precisely what many professing Christians do.

I’ve been in churches before that had more than their fair share of goats in them!  To take the image a little further what are goats well known for?  Goats will eat pretty much anything – all they seem to want to do is consume, weeds & flowers hold no distinction from soap or cuddly toys.  There are many who profess to being Christian who are likewise content to consume and not return anything of value.

The other thing that goats are really good at, is locking horns.  Often it seems that they are itching for a fight, ready to lock horns at the first opportunity, over the slightest thing, either trying to break down the fences that hold them in or trying to win a contest with whoever is around.  Across the world there are pastors and priests exhausted because they spend nearly all of their time trying to round up the goats and defuse the conflicts they’ve caused.

So how are we called to respond?  The kind of judgment that the King at the end will employ will not be about fulfilling quotas of people helped. It will be about the kind of heart that sees Jesus in us and how much we trust we will find him among those we don’t know as well as those we do; what’s being judged is not so much the number of deeds we have done but the heart behind the deeds.

What makes the sheep ‘sheep’ is that they are under God's blessing; they are people who have escaped from God's curse by putting their faith in Jesus.  What makes the goats ‘goats’ is that they are still under the curse of sin; they are people who have not really put their faith in Jesus, the only way in which we may be rescued.  Jesus our Shepherd King won’t call us goats just because we haven’t been perfect; he will only judge us that way if we have not tried, if we have been content to deal with the obvious, and failed to look past the obvious to see where he is living in our own communities.

I started today talking about earthly Kings and monarchs and that’s where I’ll end as well.  During the Second World War at the height of the blitz the last King not only stayed in the Palace to show solidarity with his people but went out to visit those places that had been destroyed by the bombing. Sometimes there were photographers present, but there are reports of the King and Queen turning up incognito, offering support and comfort to those who were coping with the aftermath.

Even though Jesus is our King, even though he deserves all the pomp and circumstance and praise we can offer him – this is how he still visits us. When we are struggling to cope - he is there to offer words of comfort - When our lives seem devastated – he is there to pull us from the wreckage.  The more we recognise his hands at work in the world through others the more we find we cannot simply stand back and talk about faith, we have to be the ones who go out incognito – we have to be his hands – lifting and supporting, not because we think we will gain some credit but simply because it’s what we do – sheep don’t even know they are sheep, but the Shepherd King recognises those who are in his flock. 

Amen.

(Dan Joseph )

This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester. Click here for further information.